


To Be Seen As We Are

by ElisabethMonroe



Series: TRC Prompt Week 2020 [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Discussions of Self Harm, Discussions of abuse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:28:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24398776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElisabethMonroe/pseuds/ElisabethMonroe
Summary: In which:Adam is seen
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Series: TRC Prompt Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760308
Comments: 16
Kudos: 152
Collections: TRC/ CDTH Prompt Week 2020





	To Be Seen As We Are

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Hurt/Comfort

By some ungrace, Ronan and Adam hadn’t gotten much further than making out and holding onto each other’s fingers or face or hair by the Christmas break, hadn’t gotten to slip under shirts and cling to shoulder blades and trace ribs, too afraid that wandering hands would find the weak spot in this happy mirage. That, plus the fact that Adam still spent most of his time in the Aglionby uniform or coveralls, two of the most difficult outfits for Ronan to get his hands under. But over the break, while Adam half moved into the Barns and suddenly disregarded his uniform for a whole month, they, and their hands, had gotten braver.

Adam supposed he should’ve said something instead of just tensing up .2 seconds  before Ronan's calloused hands found the raised line of skin scarred over. And then another and another and another. All the way down his back, crisscrossing and becoming each other. He froze. Adam froze. 

"I-um-I..." Ronan started, but had no words. Gently, he moved Adam out of his lap, into the soft downy of Ronan’s bed, the blanket that had kept him warm and safe for ages before he’d left, for the same years Adam was… He made a dash for the bathroom. He didn't make it to the toilet, but the sink worked just as well as he heaved back out whatever take out they'd dug out of the fridge.

Adam stared off at the wall the bathroom door was set in, unable to bring his eyes to Ronan’s shaking back. He knew should’ve said something, at least mentioned it, but he hadn’t expected Ronan to react with such revolusion to one of Adam’s darkest secrets laid bare like that. Ronan, who had taken everything in such stride--an angry scowl when Adam showed up with a blackened cheek, the quiet deliberate revision of his behavior if he ever caught Adam flinching when he spoke too loudly or moved too quickly--had suddenly found his limit with how broken Adam was.

He had to let go of the blanket when he realized the seams were beginning to pull apart. When he heard the water turn on in the bathroom, he slowly stood up. Every part of him wanted to run out the door and never look Ronan in the face again, but Ronan was still coughing in the bathroom and he went to him instead.

“Wash your mouth out,” he said as he stepped behind Ronan, running his hand over the other’s back and then fixing the tank top he’d rucked up a few minutes ago.

“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” Ronan snarled into the sink bowl.

Adam blinked and some part of his traitorous heart that didn’t want to be the victim loosened. “Wash your mouth,” he repeated.

Ronan’s knuckles went white on the edge of the faux-marble countertop and Adam quickly placed his hand over Ronan’s. “If I ever see that shitstain in public, I’m going to fucking kill him.”

He straightened up suddenly, sending Adam almost stumbling backwards, and then pulled him into a tight hug. For a moment, Adam was so lost and confused, his arms didn’t come up to Ronan’s waist. But slowly his body at least decided that it knew this. It knew pressing close to Ronan’s chest and taking heat and love from him.

“Adam, we knew for so long what was happening. I think about what we allowed to happen, what happened because we didn’t speak up, all the time and it makes me sick,” Ronan muttered into Adam’s hair.

“Are you sure it’s not me who makes you sick?” Adam asked quietly, muffling against Ronan’s neck.

Ronan physically jolted away, hands up coming up to Adam’s shoulders to keep them close. “What? What the fuck, Parrish? Of course it’s not you. Why would it ever be you?”

Adam brought the heel of his hand up to his eyes and quickly wiped away at the tears he was gearing up to deny. “I’m not an idiot. I know scars aren’t nice to look at. And you’d look at scars on my back a lot.” Eventually. Hopefully. God, what was wrong with him, talking about that kind of thing right now?

Ronan continued to stare at him, jaw a little loose, eyes very bright. “Are you kidding me?” he asked and reached for Adam’s hand, folding his fingers firmly over the scars that cut across his forearms. “I’m the last person who can say shit about scars. I mean, God, Adam, you let me hold you all the time. You hold my arms every night we fall asleep. I don’t mind scars.” They had more than enough between them for a lifetime, and those were just the ones they could see.

Adam had never considered Ronan’s scars the way he thought about his own. Ronan’s scars were just a part of him, a story he missed by a few months. Sometimes he thought about whether or not things would’ve been different if he’d started at Aglionby a year before he did, and sometimes at night, he stared at Ronan’s face and tried to decide if he was still dreaming of a way out, but those were the few times Adam actively even noticed the scars. The rest of the time, it was just Ronan and his body. He didn’t like to think he almost didn’t get Ronan.

Ronan brought his hand up to Adam’s cheek, holding him like he was something worth taking care of. “I care about you so much. A few scars aren’t going to drive me away. I’m just...so angry at everything about your situation.”

“It’s done, Ro,” Adam muttered, quiet and serious. He felt a little foolish, but it was drowned out by how raw he felt, ready to flinch at every word that sounded like goodbye. “There’s no going back and changing things. And I’ve...made peace with it. He can’t hurt me again.”

Ronan shook his head and hugged Adam again. “I’m angry at everyone. You dad, Gansey, the cops, the jury, but mostly me. I’m sorry.”

Adam contemplated that. Telling Ronan there was nothing for him to be sorry about would do no good. Instead, he said, “Wash your mouth.”

And Ronan finally listened, spitting mouthwash mostly anywhere but the sink. “Can I look at them?” he asked softly, looking suddenly younger, like a boy Adam only heard about from Gansey.

Adam nodded and brought Ronan back to the bedroom, kneeling on his bed. Ronan followed after him, knees pressed against Adam’s, and he reached for Adam’s hands. Adam pressed his fingers under Ronan’s bracelets.

“When I first started dreaming about guys, y’know, in a hot way, I could never see the guy’s face,” Ronan said softly, looking at where Adam’s fingers were tracing over his skin. “And I always covered his eyes, like I didn’t want him to see me. It wasn’t right. He wasn’t right.” He looked up at Adam’s face, at the hurt and hope there. “I want you to see me, Adam. All of me. And I want to see you,” he said.

Adam shifted to crawl into Ronan’s lap, thighs hot and tight around Ronan’s hips as he reached for the hem of Ronan’s tank top. When Ronan’s fingers found the hem of Adam’s shirt, he looked at him seriously. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Parrish, if I don’t get my mouth on the rest of your freckles right now, I’m gonna go mad and you’re gonna have to put me in a hospital,” Ronan said and finally the corner of Adam’s mouth tilted up. He pulled his shirt off and Ronan met him immediately for a messy, clashing kiss, fingers burning against bare skin and shoulders brushing shoulders.

Adam worried suddenly again, about the scar by his collarbones where it broke once and never healed properly or the small burns on his shoulders, but then Ronan’s mouth found a cluster of freckles at his armpit and a birthmark on his sternum and he traced his collarbones without even pausing at the scar. Adam had never considered that there were things to love in his skin too.

Ronan’s hand found the small of his back, pressed flat over a pile of scars, and he slowly lowered Adam back into the bed, moving to straddle him at the same time and then getting his mouth on his chest again. “I wanna memorize you,” he breathed and the huskiness of it went right through Adam like a lightning bolt. Ronan’s mouth continued down the flat line of Adam’s sternum, following the curve of his pectoral muscles, coming back to experimentally lav his tongue over Adam's nipple. He needed to stop. He was getting light headed with want and adoration. Probably, he thought, there was no blood left in his head at this point.

“Turn over,” he finally said and Adam did. He could feel the bed shift as Ronan sat back and a few seconds later, his hands were tracing the old lines of belts and cords that had cut across his back years and years ago.

“It was only a few years. Around when I started high school. I don’t know why he picked it up, or why he stopped,” he explained softly, pillowing his arms under his head. “He’d make me count until I couldn’t anymore. And then he’d keep going in case I was faking it.” He remembered the nights vividly. They were loud and endless. A neighbor confronting him was probably the only reason he stopped.

Ronan’s fingers curled around Adam’s ribs and the bed shifted again before Ronan was suddenly dragging his lips over the scars, tip to bottom for each one, slowly and entirely. Despite the nerve damage under the scars, the skin between them sang with pleasure as Ronan’s warm breath and warmer mouth touched on it and eventually he dragged a whole moan from Adam’s throat, stifled though it was.

“One day, I’m going to have you laid bare and I’m gonna learn every secret you have to tell,” Ronan murmured, pressing his face to Adam’s ribs, where he could feel his stuttering breath.

“How many secrets do you think I have?” Adam asked, though he knew they were both still brimming with them. “I don’t want to keep anything from you, Lynch,” he murmured honestly.

Ronan nodded, skin brushing skin--an acknowledgement, an agreement--and leaned up to kiss Adam deeply over his shoulder. “Want a secret?” he asked, like they were actually bartering in gossip and stories.

“A Lynch secret?” Adam asked.

“My secret,” Ronan said. “I’m so in love with you, Adam Parrish.”

Adam turned back over, not hiding the scars on his back, but exposing the cage of his erratic beating heart and all the beauty and hurt of it. “I see you, Ronan Lynch. I see you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me and this ficlet on Tumblr [Here](https://abarbaricyalp.tumblr.com/post/619231966189043712/to-be-seen-as-we-are)!


End file.
